Preparing for Searches

Most Church of Ireland parish registers do not have indexes and there is no single comprehensive index to all their contents.

In general, in order to prosecute a successful search in parish registers you need a name, a date and a place name.

However, there are a number of ongoing projects to index genealogical material on a county basis and some of these projects have included Church of Ireland records: details may be had from the Irish Family History Society.

The Cobh Genealogical Project (mervillecobh@eircom.net) is indexing Church of Ireland parish registers in Co. Cork.

The following publications and agencies can help with your preparations:

Handlist of Church of Ireland parish registers in the Representative Church Body Library (copies of this list, which is updated regularly, are available from RCB Library to download free of charge, please click here)